29 March 2021

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Idols of the Heart - Hedge Fund Margin Call Exposes Market Fragility

 

“Son of man, these people have set up idols in their hearts.  They hold on tightly to the things that will make them fall into sin.  Should I allow them to inquire from me at all?" 

Ezekiel 14:3

 

"Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind." 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

"And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne, and from the judgement of the Lamb.'" 

Revelation 6:16 

 

A small hedge fund, Archegos, failed to meet a major margin call, triggering an avalanche of forced stock position liquidations. 

The subsequent effect on these markets can be summarized in this way: 

"'The margin call will force every prime brokerage to review their books,' said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp.  'When you look at the stocks that were incorrectly bet on, Wall Street must ponder if the V-shaped stock market recovery got out of hand.'”

And so, if only briefly, the Masters of the Universe rediscovered the hidden shoals of risk, and were afraid. 

This morning was a minor liquidation event, in which most everything was sold. 

The small caps underperformed even as the SP and NDX managed to claw their way back to about unchanged.

Gold and silver were also sold, although gold managed to take back its losses more briskly.

The bigger cap, dividend paying miners that I hold among my positions ended up with a nice gain for the day.

This will be a light and short trading week, because of the religious holidays.

Have a pleasant evening.